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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the Reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House stu works dot com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristin kristen Um. Maybe

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Speaker 1: you've seen this stuff online or read about it in

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Speaker 1: ladies magazines about pheromone perfumes and creams that are supposedly

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Speaker 1: going to attract mates willy nilly and blind them to

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Speaker 1: what we really look like and what our personalities really are.

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Speaker 1: They're just going to bring them from all sides. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's also that it reminds you of that seen an

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Speaker 1: Anchorman where Paul Red's character pulls out that black panther

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Speaker 1: cologne that I think is supposed to be made of

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Speaker 1: some kind of pheromone. Right, Well, it turns out, and

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Speaker 1: all of this reading that we have done that unless

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Speaker 1: you're a moth or some kind of butterfly or aunt,

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Speaker 1: perhaps a pig, pheromones aren't going to do much for you.

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Speaker 1: They might not. And if you are considering purchasing one

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Speaker 1: of those pheromone perfumes, uh, you might want to rethink

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Speaker 1: because chances are the active ingredient is a vaginal secretion

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Speaker 1: from a Reeseus monkey. I cringed when I read that.

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Speaker 1: Did you all just cringe because I cringed. I cringed

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Speaker 1: a little bit. Uh. So, with that said, getting getting

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Speaker 1: them monkey secretions out of the way, So let's back

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Speaker 1: up a minute and talk about maybe a timeline of pheromones,

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Speaker 1: because the question we're asking today is do human pheromones exist?

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Speaker 1: And that human distinction is very important, as we will

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Speaker 1: soon learn, right. Um, A lot of people have done

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Speaker 1: research into insect pheromones um and they thought, you know,

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Speaker 1: like maybe this could play a part in human attraction.

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Speaker 1: But to the people who coined the term pheromone where

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Speaker 1: Peter Carlson and Martin Lucier uh, And they came up

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Speaker 1: with that word in nineteen fifty nine, which is derived

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Speaker 1: from the word the Greek words for it to carry

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Speaker 1: and to excite, So it's carrying excitement you're excited about

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Speaker 1: your fellow moth or elephant. And there are two major

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Speaker 1: types of pheromones. One is a primer pheromone, which causes

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Speaker 1: physiological changes like hormonal effects, and then there are releaser pheromones,

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Speaker 1: which will produce rapid behavioral effects such as mating. So

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Speaker 1: when these naturalists, in going back to the eighteen seventies,

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Speaker 1: noticed the reaction of male moths to female moths, they

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Speaker 1: thought something must be going on here, right, Actually, Carlson

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Speaker 1: and Lucia were doing work with termites apparently, and I

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Speaker 1: had no idea. Apparently termites have a cast system. Oh

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Speaker 1: so they were doing work to figure out why and

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Speaker 1: how this cast system was held up. And they figured

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Speaker 1: out that these animals were giving off triggers and so

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Speaker 1: pheromones as as we think of them now, Um, it's

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Speaker 1: the same definition as from the nineteen fifties when they

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Speaker 1: came up with all this great stuff. Pheromones describe a

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Speaker 1: substance that an animal gives off to trigger a specific

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Speaker 1: behavioral or developmental reaction and another member of the species.

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Speaker 1: So you know, how to ants find their way to

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Speaker 1: a piece of candy. They're they're talking to each other.

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Speaker 1: They have the little pheromones, a little sense and the

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Speaker 1: little signals that tell each other, Okay, there's food over here,

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Speaker 1: we need to head this way. And they're leaving behind

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Speaker 1: trails for the other ones behind to follow. Right. So

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Speaker 1: I think if you, if you try to like get

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Speaker 1: some water something and wipe away part of the ant trail.

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Speaker 1: They get lost because you're wipe away the pheromone and

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Speaker 1: it's also mean. Um. But but this is it's not

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Speaker 1: just insects. There was you know, there was a study

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Speaker 1: earlier than than Um Carlson and Lucier on um peacock

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Speaker 1: moss where a researcher had a female peacock moth under

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Speaker 1: a bell jar kind of said this mesh, do hicky

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Speaker 1: and it she attracted like a hundred and fifty male moths,

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Speaker 1: which is disgusting. I'm terrified of maths. Well, and these

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Speaker 1: kind of moths too were pretty large. Imagine imagining you

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Speaker 1: as in like a scene from the Berg, but it's

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Speaker 1: just full of moths. Um. Yeah, the entomol just Joseph A.

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Speaker 1: Littner and that French naturalists Jean Enri fabre Um who

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Speaker 1: had the peacock moths were first interested in this kind

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Speaker 1: of insect attraction as a way to control insects. So

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Speaker 1: pheromone research really started as pest control, right, yeah, because

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Speaker 1: if you can uh stop whatever is making them want

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Speaker 1: to create more moths and more pen worms and more cockroaches,

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Speaker 1: then you'll have fewer of them, and it's actually worked

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Speaker 1: in some instances. So in nine for instance, pheromones were

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Speaker 1: used in more than a million traps to ca sure

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Speaker 1: more than four billion beetles in the forests of Norway

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Speaker 1: and Sweden because they were trying to curb an epidemic

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Speaker 1: of bark beetles, right, and actually it really saved those forests. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: four billion beetles. I'm gonna put that in your room

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Speaker 1: with all the mobs. Um, I will have a panic attack.

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Speaker 1: And now you transformed it to Indiana Jones and the

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Speaker 1: Temple of do I. I. You know, I always think

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Speaker 1: about how I would never put my hand in that

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Speaker 1: thing where Willie has a sticker hand and then pull

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Speaker 1: the LeVert. Now it would never happen. But um, okay,

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Speaker 1: So all this inside research was was pretty was pretty clear.

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Speaker 1: You know, obviously there are these chemicals, these signals that

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Speaker 1: buds are putting out to attract each other. Um, but

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Speaker 1: what about mammals. So there's a pig pheromone that turns

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Speaker 1: a sal's attention solely to mating, and they were able. Well,

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Speaker 1: the pheromone stuff for people might not be that great

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Speaker 1: of an invention. It might not actually work. It does

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Speaker 1: work for pigs. Farmers actually have the thing that they

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Speaker 1: can spray and it gets the pig ready for whatever

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Speaker 1: is about to happen. And that would be probably an

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Speaker 1: example of the release are fair a moon that produced

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Speaker 1: the rapid behavioral effects. Um and elephants secrete some hormones

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Speaker 1: from a gland in their forehead region and it attracts

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Speaker 1: it like the stronger it is, and the stronger the

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Speaker 1: smell of the urine, the more it attracts estress female well.

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Speaker 1: And then there was a study UM at the Worcester

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Speaker 1: Foundation for Experimental Biology, and this was one of the

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Speaker 1: initial studies trying to figure out whether or not they

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Speaker 1: could identify pheromone compounds and mammals. And they again it's

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Speaker 1: always there's a lot of vaginal secretion and pheromone research.

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Speaker 1: They took a male golden hamster and just rub them

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Speaker 1: down with a female golden hamster vaginal secretions and put

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Speaker 1: them in a cage and then brought other male golden

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Speaker 1: hamsters into the cage to see what would happen. Lo

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Speaker 1: and behold, the male golden amsters were turned on by

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Speaker 1: the vaginal secretions and tried to mate with the other

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Speaker 1: male golden answers. So it's not that they so much know.

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Speaker 1: It's not like they knew he was a male. It's weird.

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Speaker 1: It's like the pheromones are telling them, this is who

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Speaker 1: you need to mate with, and so it didn't matter

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Speaker 1: that he was a boy. Hamster biology, and it's all

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Speaker 1: because they were sensing this through something called the vomo

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Speaker 1: nasal organ or the v n O. Right, it's actually

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Speaker 1: independent from our main olfactory system. So it's not like

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Speaker 1: we are. When I say we, I kind of mean everybody.

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Speaker 1: It's not like we are smelling pheromones. It's more like

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Speaker 1: a sensory thing. So so animals, insects, they all have

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Speaker 1: this thing. But we actually lost ours. We we don't

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Speaker 1: have the tissue anymore. Um, it's located the what is it,

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Speaker 1: the v n O for sure, because that's a lot

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Speaker 1: easier to say than bomaro nasal organ um. It is

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Speaker 1: located above the roof of the mouth, and it evolved

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Speaker 1: to detect large molecules and molecules that are dissolved in liquids,

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Speaker 1: which is why your dog licks other dogs as the

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Speaker 1: way of saying, hey, what's up, what have you been

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Speaker 1: up to? Yeah? That's new in your life. Well, animals

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Speaker 1: will preen each other exactly, sir Vienno kicking in right.

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Speaker 1: But you know, we are not dogs, so thankfully we

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Speaker 1: don't lick each other to say hello because that's disgusting,

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Speaker 1: or honey bets or moss. We're none of these things. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like I said, we don't have a functioning vin o.

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Speaker 1: We have. The tissue is embryos, which is interesting, UM,

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Speaker 1: but it disappears after birth, so we don't have it.

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Speaker 1: And yet there are these series of studies done that

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Speaker 1: indicate that some kind of pheromone induced behavior is going on.

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Speaker 1: And one of the biggest things that UM, one of

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Speaker 1: the most landmark studies that we have to mention that

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Speaker 1: we brought up in our podcast long time ago on

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Speaker 1: whether or not girls or women excuse me, periods will

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Speaker 1: will sync up. Ine Martha mcclinock, who's a University of

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Speaker 1: Chicago psyche cologist, has the studies UM saying that yes,

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Speaker 1: menstrual synchrony also known as a meclinic effect, does indeed exist.

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Speaker 1: Because she charted the menstrual patterns of a hundred and

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Speaker 1: thirty five college girls living together in a dorm found

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Speaker 1: some overlaps and presto, it happens, and she assumed that

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Speaker 1: there had to be some kind of hormonal influence. And

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Speaker 1: then we have me clinic in coming back with this

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Speaker 1: study finding that women who were exposed to cotton pads

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Speaker 1: soaked with under armed secretions. By that we mean sweat

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Speaker 1: collected from donors undergoing their first and second phases of

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Speaker 1: their menstrual cycles would influence the menstrual cycle of the

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Speaker 1: women who had the pads under their noses. Interesting. I mean,

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Speaker 1: we're obviously, you know, we evolved from bacteria as having

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Speaker 1: this response to chemicals. Chemicals tell us to do things

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Speaker 1: that maybe we're not aware that we actually want to do. Whatever,

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Speaker 1: I'm kind of stuff explanation. But basically, so, we can't

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Speaker 1: smell them and we don't seem to have a functioning

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Speaker 1: receptor for them. But UM research has shown that we

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Speaker 1: we do. You know, there are effects that we feel

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Speaker 1: from UM from some sort of hormone, and there are

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Speaker 1: a couple of compounds that are maybe thought to be pheromones.

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Speaker 1: It just hasn't been proved yet, right, UM, we we

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Speaker 1: should probably bring up the dirty T Shirt study, which

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Speaker 1: is UM one that we've talked about before in the podcast,

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Speaker 1: and the first one took place, and I want to

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Speaker 1: say that they've gone back and retested this um in

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Speaker 1: more recent years. But basically, they had heterosexual women sniff

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Speaker 1: dirty undershirts belonging to men without seeing their faces, and

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Speaker 1: they would look at the guys and read their attractiveness.

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Speaker 1: And long story short, the men with the who smelled

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Speaker 1: the most attractive and their dirty undershirts ended up having

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Speaker 1: the most different gene complex of the women who found

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Speaker 1: them the most attractive. Right, you're looking for somebody who's

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Speaker 1: not your brother, exactly, avoiding avoiding uh, inbreeding. So maybe

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Speaker 1: it's something to do with sweat. Could be there's something

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Speaker 1: in our sweat glands. Yeah, and it aliating magic. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's a it. Well, there's a steroid and a

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Speaker 1: derivative of testosterone called androwsta dinone uh, and men have

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Speaker 1: more of this than women, and so they think thought

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Speaker 1: for a while that perhaps this testosterone derivative is the pheromone, right,

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Speaker 1: But in two thousand seven that kind of went out

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Speaker 1: the window. Right. Andreas Keller, a geneticist at Rockefeller University,

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Speaker 1: discovered that really it kind of depends depending on your

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Speaker 1: old factory jeans. You could either find that chemical pleasant,

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Speaker 1: you could find it completely repulsive, or you would just

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Speaker 1: not even be able to detect it at all. So

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Speaker 1: it's really kind of a a singular you know, it

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Speaker 1: depends on your nose. Yeah, although we we gotta put

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Speaker 1: nose in quotes, because remember, pheromones, although they're often characterized

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Speaker 1: as these uh innate smells that we somehow sense, we

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Speaker 1: aren't really we aren't processing them in our noses. And

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Speaker 1: again we're also saying that, uh, there is no complete

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Speaker 1: scientific proof that pheromones human pheromones really exist, and certainly

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Speaker 1: not in the way that they might in silkworm moths.

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Speaker 1: And this is probably because, as the Howard Use Medical

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Speaker 1: Institute points out, compared to insects whose behavior is stereotyped

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Speaker 1: and highly predictable, mammals such as we are our independent,

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Speaker 1: ornery and complex. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's so much

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Speaker 1: more to um to love and sex among humans than

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Speaker 1: just like I lack your chemicals. You know. Tristram Wyatt

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Speaker 1: of Oxford University is kind of like, in doing all

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Speaker 1: this research, I he must be the pheromone guy. Loves pheromones.

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Speaker 1: Um So Whyatt said that it's it's so much more

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Speaker 1: than just visual and social signals. You know, we're emotional people.

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Speaker 1: We have preferences and prejudices. Um, you know, it might

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Speaker 1: matter that I like the same music as someone, or

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Speaker 1: we come from the same background, uh than if if

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Speaker 1: your chemicals are are good smelling. Yeah, and it makes

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Speaker 1: sense that we would be uh possibly driven to those

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Speaker 1: those different gene complexes to ensure, you know, that we

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Speaker 1: could have healthier offspring. But yeah, I mean boiling everything

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Speaker 1: down to one love potion number nine seems I don't

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Speaker 1: know that also kind of take the take the fun

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Speaker 1: out of things. But going back to that Randy Hudder

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Speaker 1: Epstein article in Slate, and she also wrote UM a

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Speaker 1: similar article for Psychology Today. She h she was so

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Speaker 1: frustrated with seeing all of these UM recommendations in Shape magazine,

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Speaker 1: on your Tango dot com and in surprise here Cosmopolitan

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Speaker 1: about how to enhance your pheromonal attraction or attractive powers.

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Speaker 1: I should say, um. And for instance, Shape magazine recommends

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Speaker 1: that couples work out together and don't shower immediately because

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Speaker 1: you continue to release attraction boosting hormones for an hour

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Speaker 1: after you finished exercising. Um. Also, you know, like, don't

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Speaker 1: put perfume on your neck, breasts, or genitals because that

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Speaker 1: will quote unquote hide the important pheromones that drive men wild.

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Speaker 1: And my favorite from Cosmos, just don't wear underwear because

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Speaker 1: and this is all this is a direct quote, because

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Speaker 1: owners and your pheromones will more easily waft into the

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Speaker 1: air and be picked up subliminally by the primitive part

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Speaker 1: of his brain. I don't I don't want anything wafting

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Speaker 1: not I mean, I don't want to refer back to

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Speaker 1: our douche podcast or anything. But let's we we all

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Speaker 1: saw what happened with Lindsay Lohan and Britney speakers. Just

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Speaker 1: put underwear on from Caroline Right. Well, no, Actually, one

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Speaker 1: of my favorite quotes regarding all of this, all this

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Speaker 1: hui with the pheromone perfume, is from Stewart Firestein of

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Speaker 1: Columbia University. He said, let's just say someone sold me

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Speaker 1: this pheromone so that I could attract women. There's no

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Speaker 1: supermodel pheromone. So I put this stuff on, and I'm deluged,

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Speaker 1: deluged with horny women of all sorts, and the only

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Speaker 1: thing they have in common is they all have a nose.

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Speaker 1: What good is that. I don't know. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: have a lot of guy friends who would love to

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Speaker 1: be deluged with women. And if you're still wondering, you know,

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Speaker 1: like what the what the science is saying, just just

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Speaker 1: take it from the book title. All Right. Richard Dody,

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Speaker 1: director of University of Pennsylvania's Smell and Taste Research Center,

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Speaker 1: wrote the book entitled really sums it all up, The

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Speaker 1: Great Pheromone myth. Yeah, he says, it's a mythology. It

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Speaker 1: plays into how we want there to be something more

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Speaker 1: primal and special about the attraction we have to someone, right,

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Speaker 1: and it's not again like the science can be a

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Speaker 1: little a little tricky to untangle because they're not saying

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Speaker 1: that there aren't some kind of chemical signals that go

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Speaker 1: on between people but not. But we're not in the

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Speaker 1: same way as silkworm r right, And we have yet

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Speaker 1: to really nail something down for certain so well. I

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Speaker 1: mean we've pinpointed stuff in and insects. It's it's it

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Speaker 1: hasn't been as easy and human. And I think it

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Speaker 1: was also interesting that killer study, Caroline that you mentioned

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Speaker 1: that found that if there is well the found that

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Speaker 1: people's reactions to that compound in sweat varies from person

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Speaker 1: to person. Um, just kind of like attraction in general,

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Speaker 1: in various from person to person. But there was one

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Speaker 1: UM Swedish study from two thousand five, just to throw

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Speaker 1: out one more kind of pheromone related study, uh, that

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Speaker 1: that had an interesting hypothesis about pheromones the hypothalamus and

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Speaker 1: possibly biological basis for homosexuality. Right, yeah, this was actually

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Speaker 1: really interesting. UM. The study looked into the effects on

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Speaker 1: the brain of two chemicals. There was a testosterone derivative

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Speaker 1: produced in men sweat and estrogen light compound in women's urine,

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Speaker 1: both of which they thought, are you know, could be

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Speaker 1: potential pheromones. Um. These two chemicals activate the brain in

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Speaker 1: a very different way than normal sense do. So it's

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Speaker 1: not like you're smelling freshly bake cookies or something and

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Speaker 1: you're like it's something more um, subliminal. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway,

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Speaker 1: the estrogen light compound just activated the typical scent receptors

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Speaker 1: and women you know, didn't do anything special, but in

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Speaker 1: men it lit up the hypothalamus, a region of the

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Speaker 1: brain that governs sexual behavior. Now for the male sweat

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Speaker 1: chemical that activated the hypothalamus in women, but just the

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Speaker 1: usual uptors in men. However, they repeated the study and

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Speaker 1: included gay men as a third group, and that had

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Speaker 1: interesting results. They found that gay men responded to the

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Speaker 1: two compounds in the exact same way that women did

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Speaker 1: so when they smelled the male sweat, in other words,

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Speaker 1: it left the same area of the hypothalamus did in

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Speaker 1: the women. And they tested this too on gay women,

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Speaker 1: and for some reason, the New York Times articles sort

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Speaker 1: of vague about it, but the researchers said that the

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Speaker 1: results needed further assessment before they could offer any types

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Speaker 1: of conclusions. And so again this is just another example

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Speaker 1: of yes, we're seeing some kind of behavioral or physiological change,

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Speaker 1: but they're not exactly sure what genetic components are are

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Speaker 1: causing it, so it's all sort of up in the

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Speaker 1: air unless you're a moth. You're a moth listening to

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Speaker 1: our podcast or fascinating silk worms out there everywhere, Like

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Speaker 1: this explains everything. I just can't get that lady moth

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Speaker 1: out of my head. But again, just remember if you

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Speaker 1: are attempted to pick up some of that pheromone guaranteed perfume,

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Speaker 1: just think about racist monkey vaginal secretions active ingredient. So

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Speaker 1: with that, we invite your thoughts on pheromones. Mom Stuff

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Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com is our email address,

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Speaker 1: and I've got an email here from Nathan and it's

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Speaker 1: in response to our episode on romance novels and he

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Speaker 1: offers this multicultural insight. He writes, one of the largest

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Speaker 1: romance fiction markets in Japan is for the kind of

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Speaker 1: choose your own adventure style of games called bi Show Joe.

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Speaker 1: Since nine two men have been reading through novel length

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Speaker 1: romance stories to develop serious relationships with imaginary characters in

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Speaker 1: a very similar way to how women build imaginary relationships

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Speaker 1: in American and European romance novels. There may not be

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Speaker 1: as much scientific literature about the relationship between these two

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Speaker 1: because of their separation between industries, but really isn't It

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Speaker 1: is an important topic not to forget. If y'all can

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Speaker 1: find research for the multicultural aspects of your topics, they

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Speaker 1: would definitely appeal to a wider audience. So I've never

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Speaker 1: heard of the show Joe. Very interesting. Okay, this is

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Speaker 1: an email from Jamie about our HPV episode. She said,

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Speaker 1: I do want to clarify something you said on the

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Speaker 1: show that West Virginia and d C have HPV mandates

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Speaker 1: for middle school girls. While the word mandate is accurate,

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Speaker 1: it is misleading given the number of exemptions parents can get.

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Speaker 1: In both these states slash municipalities, parents can choose not

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Speaker 1: to vaccinate their daughters on their soul discretion without any

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Speaker 1: religious or medical reason, a so called philosophical exemption. Given

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Speaker 1: that anyone who wants can exempt, it's not fair to

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Speaker 1: necessarily call these bills mandates. Rather, the purpose of the

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Speaker 1: bill is to provide vaccines to children who don't have

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Speaker 1: access to high quality medical care. By mandating vaccines, families

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Speaker 1: are more aware of their necessity. The state insures that

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Speaker 1: vaccines are made available for all children, and most important

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Speaker 1: of all, low income children can receive mandated vaccines for

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Speaker 1: free through the Federal Vaccines for Children program. Thus, the

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Speaker 1: purpose of these bills is not to force children to

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Speaker 1: be vaccinated, a common misperception in the general press, but

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Speaker 1: rather to provide vaccines to those children who can to

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Speaker 1: slip through the cracks of the medical system. Thanks Jamie

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Speaker 1: and I have to offer a quick correction right now

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Speaker 1: from our Drag Queens podcast and believe we referenced the

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Speaker 1: stonewall riots happening in San Francisco. They were in New York.

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Speaker 1: It was in New York. Yeah, are we thinking we Yeah?

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Speaker 1: We were just read a lot of stuff. It happened,

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Speaker 1: not mixed up. So if you have anything to send

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Speaker 1: our way again, email addresses moms Stuff at how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. We'd also love to see you over

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Speaker 1: on Facebook, and you can follow us on Twitter at

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Speaker 1: mom Stuff Podcasts, and you can check out the blog

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Speaker 1: during the week It's stuff Mom Never told You at

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Speaker 1: how Stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out

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Speaker 1: our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how

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Speaker 1: Staff Work Staff as we explore the most promising and

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Speaker 1: perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The How Stuff Works iPhone app

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Speaker 1: has a ride. Download it today on iTunes, brought to

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Speaker 1: you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,

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Speaker 1: Are you